~political action and advocacy~
Participating Members:
Jenna Aleski
Tiffany DeMartino
Andrew McDonald
Megan Schmucker
Amanda Sepp
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In September, our PACE chair along with some friends reserved a table outside our dining hall (in what passes for our student union) to register people to vote. We shared the website schoolhouseballot.com to promote pro-education candidates. Happily, we found that most of our peers were registered!
Voter registration
Parking Pass & Basket Raffle
Participating Members:
(those who helped at the table)
Jenna Aleski
Francesca DeCarlo
Frank Laspin
Brittani Malik
Andrew McDonald
Allison Popelas
During the Activities Fair, we raffled off a parking pass and a Pitt basket filled with school supplies and SPSEA swag. The money raised from these raffles was sent to PACE. While we raised less than we had hoped (only $30 profit), we raised awareness about the importance of PACE and of voting for pro-education candidates.
Trick or Vote
Participating Members:
Courtney Cambal
Cameron Collins
Brandon Cross
Matthew Grayo
Amanda Sepp
Lucy Wracher
Each year, students who live in the residence halls take plastic pumpkin baskets full of candy to their residence halls and ask people to vote pro-education. In this reverse trick-or-treating, students in the residence halls are not only given candy, but they are given a sheet of paper with information about why it's important for them to vote pro-education as college students and, more specifically, as Pitt-Greensburg students.
How do state politics affect
policies & finances
Participating Members:
Jenna Aleski
Rowan Alexander
Matt Boyer
Courtney Cambal
Tiffany DeMartino
Casey Fortuna
Olivia Larson
Kendra Moxon
Cheyenne O'Bradovich
Alex Poellenitz
Alyssa Sadler
Megan Schmucker
Angela Schwartz
Amanda Sepp
Kaylee White
On October 24, we invited both Fritz Fekete, the PSEA Region Advocacy Coordinator, and Mary Ellen Jones, the local
PSEA UniServ Representative, to our campus to discuss the Attack on Public Education. The members in attendance all left with a greater understanding and a strong displeasure at attitudes of local and state governments towards education. It was a really powerful session with lots of great (but unfortunate) information shared.
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Reading a Contract
Participating Members:
Katherine Andrews
Hannah Cerk
Samantha Cook
Chyna Cunningham
Randy Duke
Alyssa Fry
Alyssa Gavron
Haley Hulbert
Frank Laspin
Andrew McDonald
Kasey McIntosh
Melanie Olive
Tyler Reese
Gabrielle Revenis
Amanda Sepp
Samantha Tarboletti
When Mary Ellen Jones, the local PSEA UniServ Representative,
presented the workshop above, she brought in examples of teacher contracts from around the country. She suggested that members know how to read a contract and know what they were looking for (e.g., benefits, class/school reassignments, leave). She explained how contracts are related directly to politics: teachers' pay, days enrolled, monies allocated to schools (versus charters), and the overall respect that teachers are given. To that end, we invited her back to present a workshop on how to read a contract.
The members who attended, mainly juniors and seniors, were surprised at the level of detail and the variety of factors within any given contract.
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Basket Raffle at TLI
Participating Members:
Part of being a leader is being involved and knowing the issues. As aspiring educators, that means understanding what is happening politically and being involved. At the Teacher Leadership Conference, the Pitt-Greensburg chapter provided seven of the ten baskets raffled for PACE. These baskets plus the additional three provided by Slippery Rock and Seton Hill earned about $200 for PACE. This is especially exciting because there were just under 60 people total (including presenters).
Allison Popelas
Sarah Raptosh
Kimberly Ruffner
Alyssa Sadler
Natalie Sarnese
Amanda Sepp
Jake Snyder
Haley Stonebraker
Kaylee White
Lindsey Wittkopp
Gina Wojtowicz
Lucinda Wracher
Katelyn Zanotti
Rowan Alexander
Miranda Anker
Maura Carr
Luke Falbo
Alexa Fetterman
Casey Fortuna
Carly Franks
Matthew Grayo
Allie Grimm
Hunter Humenik
Olivia Larson
Kendra Moxon